The Role of Agribusiness Private Sector Actors in Creating Economic Opportunities for Youth in Agriculture. A Case Study of USAID/Feed The Future, Youth Leadership for Agriculture Activity in Eastern Uganda

Master's Thesis from the year 2018 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Topic: Development Politics, grade: 60.0, , course: MA International Development, language: English, abstract: This study was conducted to explore the role of agribusiness private sector actors in creating economic opportunities for youth along their respective agribusiness value chains. Ugandäs underutilization of youth labour rate is high standing at 67.9 %.

Agriculture remains the biggest opportunity for creation of massive economic opportunities for youth. A cross sectional research design was adopted. The study area was eastern Uganda in four districts. Using questionnaires and key informant interviews, a total of 220 and 9 respondents were interviewed respectively. Quantitative data analysis mainly consisted of descriptive statistics and content analysis was used for qualitative data. The study revealed that 99.1 % of youth were engaging in agribusiness with 93.5% of youth into primary production of mainly maize, beans and soya as the major crops. youth and agribusiness companies had a positive attitude engaging each other at different levels of agricultural value chain.

Lack of access to finance (64%), skills and knowledge (58.4%) and land (46.3%) were the main barriers for youth in agribusinesses. However, (94.1%) of the respondents agreed to untapped economic opportunities still in production. Trainings (64.2%) and enabling access to finance (62.7%) were top roles for agribusinesses to increase profitable youth participation in agriculture.

The study recommends: (i) innovative and inclusive financial solutions for all youth in agribusiness; (ii) government and donors need to invest in a sustainable market facilitative approach, enhance early mind-sets change and promote technical market driven skills development for workforce readiness in agribusiness targeting youth both in school and out of school.